Brandon Meeks

It’s 7:43 AM. Merle is on the radio making empty promises. “Someday when things are good / I’m going to leave you,” he sings. But we know better. I am sitting in a corner booth, surrounded by the rising tufts of Marlboros, and still trying to wake up good. Coffee stouter than napalm is dripping, … Continue Reading

1989 was a foreign country; I go there often. A magical land where cell phones were still a distant threat, where McDonald’s still fried their hot apple pies in honest-to-God grease, and where every hamlet in America still had at least one conversation factory like LaGrone’s Drugstore. Among my … Continue Reading

In the summer of 2009, I was hired by a studio out of Mobile, Alabama to play piano on a couple country albums for these two brothers, Micky and Dickie as I recall. Though the booking was originally only supposed to be for one day, it ended up taking three due to those fellas’ odd dietary habits. … Continue Reading

She was old all my life; 76 when I was born, 87 when I first met her. When she spoke, it sounded like a swarm of bees hovering over a thick patch of clover. She was blind and feeble and had to be led around by the arm. But there was rarely a Sunday that went by for a hundred years that didn’t find … Continue Reading